Page 86 - AVN February 2018

EDITOR’S DESK | By Sharan Street
EDITOR’S DESK
Editor’s Desk
(Continued from page 85)
Laurer. Joseph now runs US Arcades, which facilitates
900 arcade booths in more than 50 adult stores in 21
states and counting; Bedroom Products, an upstart
line of pleasure products; and Rock Candy Toys,
which the industry will be hearing much more about
in the coming months.
MARK KULKIS—Mark Kulkis found his way to
Porn Valley in the early ’90s after dabbling in law
school and public relations in New York City. In 1995,
Kulkis landed a job at AVN and rose to the position
of managing editor. At the same time, he studied
photography, videography and editing, skills he put
to use after leaving AVN in 1997 by producing his
first porn movie, Barefoot Confidential—which would
become one of the longest-running adult series in
history. Kulkis meanwhile took a position at LFP to
oversee the creation of Hustler Video, through which
he was allowed to distribute his own movies under
the banner Kick Ass Pictures. In 2003, he took Kick
Ass independent and launched a groundbreaking
publicity campaign: Entering first-and-only Kick Ass
contract girl Mary Carey into the 2003 California
gubernatorial recall election. Kulkis gradually
transitioned out of adult, with Matt and Melissa
Campos fully acquiring Kick Ass Pictures last March.
CHUCK ZANE—Chuck Zane has had a storied
history in XXX. Originally an adult retailer in
upstate New York since 1971, Zane first began
releasing adult movies in 1986, beginning with the
feature Backside to the Future, and within a year, Zane
Entertainment Group was running at full speed. He
also wasn’t afraid to challenge the prejudices of the
time, releasing several IR tapes as well as a series
of bisexual features directed by Gino Colbert. But
perhaps the biggest name to be connected with Zane
Entertainment was Max Hardcore. But the recession
of the early 2000s wasn’t kind to adult, so Zane
closed Zane Entertainment in 2002 and his European
company EFA the following year. From 2004 to 2008,
he was a manufacturers’ representative for American
adult product in Europe. Zane also spent a year on
the staff of Exquisite Multimedia and was a rep for
Black Market Novelties from 2014 to 2016.
AVN Hall of Fame – Executive Branch
MARC BRUDER—On pretty much every count—
longevity, impact, breadth of experience—Marc
Bruder hits it out of the park as an AVN Hall of
Fame candidate. Bruder has been with CED (Cable
Entertainment Distribution) since the 1980s and
continues to supply adult programming to broadcast
systems around the globe. Prior to starting CED,
the Southern California native worked for the Z
Channel, Times Mirror Cable and Time-Warner
Cable, among others. Bruder ticks off the various
achievements of CED. For one thing, the company
offered the first pay-per-view exhibition of adult with
the original Deep Throat—and it still is the exclusive
broadcast distributor for Arrow. And there were
other groundbreaking moves by the company, Bruder
notes: CED was the first to broadcast parodies on
cable channels, the first to air cable-version soft edits
on broadcast systems, and the only distributor still
licensing to hotels in the United States.
86 | AVN.com | 2.18
MARA EPSTEIN—Mara Epstein got her start in the
adult industry after she answered a Variety ad looking
for telemarketers. She initially started at VCA, which
is now under the Hustler umbrella. She soon moved
on to serve as sales manager for Arrow Film and
Video, where she helped create the “sell-through”
market with such famous films as Deep Throat and The
Devil in Miss Jones—which was a practice the rest of the
industry soon followed. Her career took her not only
through the video segment of the industry—working
for Metro Films, Laser Disc Entertainment (now
known as New Frontier Media) and Private USA—but
the novelty sector as well. She was instrumental in
introducing the LELO brand to the adult market and
helped launched Maia Toys in America. Epstein also
served for more than 14 years on the Free Speech
Coalition board. Most recently she has worked for
a number of companies and organizations and is
currently available as a consultant, especially in the
novelty market.
RONDEE KAMINS—Few can lay claim to a history
in the adult business as long as that of Rondee
Kamins. She first began working for nationwide
adult distributor General Video of America (GVA)
in 1982, first as the publisher of Connection, whose
anonymous “swinger” contributors feared disclosing
their identities to the government—so Kamins filed
a federal lawsuit against the law that would have
required that disclosure, 18 U.S.C. §2257. Sadly,
the lawsuit failed at the appeals court level, and the
magazine folded, but not before she received AVN’s
Reuben Sturman Award, named after GVA’s founder.
After Connection, she became the manager of various
areas of GVA and its companion company, Trans
World News, both later known as GVA-TWN and
owned by her father, who had bought them from
Sturman in 1986. Today, Kamins owns the company
and its 40 retail stores, located in five states in the
Midwest, having purchased it all from her dad in
2003.
AVN Hall of Fame – Internet Founders
BRAD MITCHELL—Now in his 18th year, Brad
Mitchell is the founder and CEO of MojoHost, a
world leader in web hosting and one of the adult
industry’s most respected companies. MojoHost
owns and operates a global network and IP space,
peering and exchanging internet traffic directly with
dozens of networks at various exchanges, while
boasting a direct connection to the world’s top four
networks. MojoHost has its flagship data center in
Miami and another in Amsterdam, Netherlands. A
former medical billing executive in the healthcare
industry, Mitchell got into adult in 1999, learning the
digital sector as a webmaster, pay-site owner, affiliate
program operator, domain seller, alternative biller and
live phone sex marketer prior to launching MojoHost.
Last May Mitchell moved his corporate headquarters
to a new office in Bingham Farms, Mich., where he
leads an advanced network operations center. One of
the most approachable CEOs in adult, Mitchell is also
known for his unique sense of style, often sporting
funky blazers and vibrant shirts when he steps onto
the show floor.
AVN Hall of Fame –
Pleasure Products Branch
SAM BOLTANSKY—Komar’s Sam Boltansky was
one of the first people who helped to get pornography
and sex toys out to the masses, but he paid a price
for doing so. Boltansky ran the family-owned
Komar Co., which in 1960 was a U.S. distributor for
the U.K.-based Penguin Books, moving 2 million
copies of Lady Chatterley’s Lover annually from a
brick building in Baltimore. While federal judges
prevented the U.S. government’s attempts to block
distribution of the book in America, it didn’t stop
officials from trying to go after those who distributed
pornography. Boltansky was among those accused
of illegally distributing obscene material and having
ties to organized crime. He fought the law, however,
and eventually won an acquittal in 1972 of a federal
obscenity prosecution—and then continued fighting
for the First Amendment. Boltansky sold his interests
in the Komar Company in the early 2000s. He died in
2002.
JOEL KAMINSKY—Currently the CEO of Good
Vibrations, Kaminsky has a history in the industry
that stretches back to his teenage years. “My first
jobs were seasonal, during school breaks, working
in the warehouse in the 1960s, and later on full time
after graduating college in 1975,” Kaminsky said of
his earliest experiences in adult businesses. In the
early 2000s, Kaminsky served as CEO of both Good
Vibrations and General Video of America–Trans
World News, where he worked alongside his niece,
Rondee Kamins (also an AVN Hall of Fame inductee).
Founded in 1977 by Joani Blank, Good Vibrations
was transformed into a worker-owned and operated
cooperative. In 2006, it returned to a more traditional
business structure and sold itself in 2007 to GVA-
TWN. Kaminsky purchased Good Vibrations outright
in 2008 and hired Jackie Strano to run operations.
“I’m honored to be recognized by AVN,” Kaminsky
said. “How many people get to receive an award for
merely doing what they love?”
BRUCE MURISON—This man helped to
revolutionize the pleasure products industry a decade
ago with his invention, the We-Vibe. The idea for a
vibrator to be worn by women during lovemaking
was the result of a conversation between Murison
and his wife, Melody. Working in Ottawa when the
tech crash hit in the early 2000s, Murison dreamed of
building a company and taking a product to market.
When introduced, the We-Vibe was like nothing the
industry had ever seen. The C-shape of the piece was
new, as was its use of silicone. But it took almost no
time for the couples vibrator to develop a dedicated
fan base. Since then, the We-Vibe family of products
has grown to include other versions of the original
piece, as well as new designs for women and couples.
Recently, the parent company Standard Innovation
began designing items for men as well.
These biographical sketches were written by the AVN
editorial staff. Find a longer version on AVN.com.